The Best Software Selection Is on the Mac

We Mac users are significantly more spoiled than users of any other platform. We have the best selection of quality applications of any OS. Sure, Windows creams us for quantity, but the best, most popular, industry standard applications are in most cases available on the Mac, AutoCAD being the glaring omission.

Linux users on the other hand, seem starved of those commercial applications, as demonstrated by Novell who is running a survey asking people what applications they would like to see ported to Linux. It is providing some interesting results from a Mac perspective.

So, according to the Apple Product Guide and a little Internet research, the only applications on that top 10 not available on the Mac are AutoCAD and Visio. Throw onto the available list other popular applications such as Microsoft Office, MYOB, OmniPage, Illustrator and InDesign as well as Mac only applications such as Final Cut, Shake and Logic and Macs have almost blanket coverage. Tell me again why we need Windows?

Why not use alternatives?
It could be argued: “So what? If application X isn’t available on my platform - there are suitable alternatives.” The truth goes deeper though. People being strange beings who like familiarity, want to use exactly the same application. Not something compatible. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on Publish.com theorizes on why Linux users still want Photoshop despite having the more than capable replacement in GIMP. He summed it up perfectly in one simple sentence:

Photoshop is simply “The” application that professionals use.

It’s the same with AutoCAD, MS Office, Flash and several others. Some applications are standards and a lot of organizations simply won’t use anything else. Do you think GIMP, OpenOffice and Scribus on your CV will get you a job over a person with Photoshop, MS Office and InDesign on their’s? Rarely.

What applications do you want on Mac?
If you did this survey with Mac users, AutoCAD would be close to #1, but what else would be on the list? Here’s some for starters, including a couple of corporate ones from my past tacked on the end:

MS-Access
MS-Publisher (Bag it you may, but there’s many, many Windows folks who swear by it.)
MS-Visio
Dragon Naturally Speaking
AutoCAD
Various games
Lotus Domino (the server side of Lotus Notes)
Trim Context

So why not switch?
Now of course, all of this raises a question that the Linux folks may discover is hard to answer, if they ever get any of those applications. If they’ve got the software, why aren’t people switching? The Linux folk may just find that they hit the same wall as Apple. There’s many reasons for this, but primary among them is corporate resistance to change. I managed to successfully use a Mac most of the time in my last job, so it is possible.

But for the home user, and the small to medium business, it’s quite feasible to successfully switch to Mac. It is a little like moving from Australia to the USA or vice versa: there is a cost involved and a few new things and idiosyncrasies to learn, but once you get over the hump, it’s smooth sailing and - certainly in the case of switching to Macs - well worth it.

Software envy
Finally, with applications such as iMovie, iDVD, Garageband, iPhoto, Pages, Keynote, DevonTHINK, iCal, Logic, Final Cut Studio, Shake and many others, it’s quite possible that there’s more software for the Mac than Windows folks wish they had; and more traditional Windows software for the Mac than Mac software for Windows users.

We Mac users really do have the best software options of any platform.

Access has been a pain for Mac users, but I recently read an article about a potential link that has been developed. (http://www.actualtechnologies.com/product_access.php). Haven’t done more than bookmark the site as I won’t need to worry about it for a few months.

While PC users grips that there isn’t much software written for Macs I’ve found that the problem is just the opposite - there are too many to look through and find new things to try. VersionTracker has a mass of them as does an ad free site I use (http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/) which has 14,000+ OS X apps. DIgging through it has helped me find a handful of apps (freeware and shareware) that lets me do things I never would have when I used a PC.

For those “must have” Win apps (and I have 3 small ones right now) VPC & 2000 Pro take care of them. When MS delivers a universal version of VPC then they will be available at near native speeds and yo can keep Win isolated from the internet.

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of iWork. Pages is kind of painful to work in vs (Open)Office. SubEthaEdit is Notepad2 on the Windows side. Thunderbird or Outlook to replace Mail.

One piece of software that I couldn’t live without on my Mac is the Path Finder http://www.cocoatech.com/pf4/ . My biggest gripe with using a Mac has been that the Finder is horribly underpowered as compared to Konqueror or Windows Explorer. This brings things up to speed nicely.

In any case, saying that OSX has the best selection of software is a bit of a stretch. Yes, the Mac definitely has a solid line up, but it still has a ways to go before anyone can go around calling it the best.

Man, what I would love to see is native Mac apps getting ported to Windows. You see I was using a G4 Flat-Panel iMac at home to do my developing/designing on. But now I’m doing some traveling for a while and all I have to work on is my ThinkPad 600X. I was going to run Linux off of it, but I could never get any of the distros to work properly so I’m back to using Windows. Since coming back, I’ve tried to set the notebook up so that I can work seamlessly as I did on the G4, but it’s been hella dicey. Got FeedDemon so I could keep up with my feeds, but it’s so clumsy and garrish compared to NetNewsWire. None of the FTP programs that I have tried out for Windows even comes close to Transmit. Picasa is cool, but it’s no iPhoto. Nvu and PSPad work “ok”, but why should I have to use two different programs to write code when I could just use SubEthaEdit on the Mac which handles all of the programming languages? And that’s just the hardcore stuff. It would be nice if Apple ported iCal and Address Book and iSync to Windows: The Palm app is just plain ugly and Thunderbird can’t hold a candle to Address Book. If anything I’d like to see all of these great Mac-centric programs get ported to Windows that way I could remain productive until I can get my hands on the MacBook Pro.

“In any case, saying that OSX has the best selection of software is a bit of a stretch. Yes, the Mac definitely has a solid line up, but it still has a ways to go before anyone can go around calling it the best.”

Martin - I think it’s either the best or it isn’t. And when I think of Final Cut, Logic, Mail, OS X, there’s no question in my mind, that the Mac has, by far, the best software for my needs. I even think most users could consider it the best line-up, as well.

But at the end of the day, it is a relative opinion, and I bet there are people who there who would find Linux software best for them, or Windows software better suited to what they do.

But there is one thing I don’t even question: the best gaming line-up on any platform is on games consoles. Plus the fact that the graphics on consoles are quickly overtaking PC graphics, I think the reason to being able to play games on windows will shortly run dry.

Martin: I did not say there were no alternatives on Windows, I said there were no worthy ones. I think the list I presented are examples of software which is just better on the Mac. There nay be apps that cover the same field on Windows but they are not nearly as good.

“This is just a seasonal effect. Consoles can’t run a hadware market unto themselves”

It’s not a “seasonal effect.” Consoles today are specially engineered for gaming. PCs are a mile away from being made for that. When are we going to see PCs with triple, multi-thread-capable core CPUs? Never. Because it’s just not needed in the PC world, but the gaming world already has this hardware.

In a few years, I bet the only games which will still be available on PCs are Strategy games and Role Playing games.

It’s too easy to cherry pick apps that are either not available on Windows/Linux or knock down what is available on those platforms in order to form what is an inherently subjective opinion anyway. What’s the point? Frankly, the whole “who’s envious of who now?” thing just strikes me as a kind of short man’s complex.

In defense of the Mac, they have some great software that either runs better on that platform or simply isn’t available in Windows. That’s the reason I have a Mac and I use it every day.

In defense of Windows, they have some great software that either runs better on that platform or simply isn’t available in Windows. That’s the reason I have a Mac and I use it every day.

Nice article, Chris. It seems that the biggest argument PC users have had in the past is that there’s not enough software for the Mac, which is not the case anymore, and in many cases, as have been mentioned above, we have better and easier to use software. The only exception now being the AutoCAD users, of which I believe makes up only a small portion of PC users. It’s time everyone else just stopped making up excuses and deal with reality…